However, whatever Type you fall into, today’s blog is specially dedicated to ALL of you!В First, let me ask you this question…

“How well do you know your MP?”

If your MP is not one of the ‘big guns’ in their respective parties, you may hardly see your MP appearing in the news or media. Sadly, this holds more true if your MP is from the Opposition camp since their community space is already limited by mainstream media. Heck, it may even lead to assumptions that your MP is practically doing nothing! This really pisses off many people who often complain that they only get to see their MP once every 4-5 years when they do their pre-election ’rounds’ of hand-shaking and greeting the people in that area…:-p

Anyway, in this day and age where technology and social media is so advanced, it is fairly easy to literally follow the progress and performance of your MP, giving you essential knowledge and information if the MP is good enough to secure your vote for another term or not!

So, if your answer to my first question above is a little vague, my advise to you would be to quickly Google up your MP, follow them on Twitter, be their friend on Facebook, subscribe to their website RSS, etc. and you should either be amazed, shocked and possiblyВ appalled(!) at the existing work your MP has done for the community in your area.

A good example would be the MP in my area, YB Teo Nie Ching. If it weren’t for today’s accessibility to social media, I wouldn’t be able to follow and monitor her numerous efforts, support and presence in many of my area’s community events, gatherings, etc. Heck, I wouldn’t have known she was pregnant and became a mother not too long ago too! It was quite astonishing really to see many of these efforts not highlighted in mainstream media, which lends an ear to whether it can actually be quite useful to have personalised or customised newsletters by all MPs? Hmmmmm…

After you have done your homework and research on your existing MP, then you can ask yourself this question…

With Star Trek Into Darkness looming ever closer to its opening, I can’t help but get more and more excited everyday. Thus, to build up the momentum or hype for Into Darkness, I thought it might actually be quite good fun if we started to incorporate or adapt some of those famous Star Trek quotes into our everyday life whilst we wait anxiously to watch the new movie!

2. When getting frustrated with terrible service at some counter or bank, heave a huge sigh and say smugly “The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe..”

3. When dark clouds appear and rain drops start to fall, stand up in an urgent manner and yell..“Yellow alert! Raise shields!”

4. Instead of using modern vulgar curses, you could try..“Up your shaft!”

5. Whilst trying to decide where to go have lunch with your office colleagues, you may smartly offer “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”

6. If your office suddenly becomes eeriely silent, try slamming the table and gasp “My God…is this an office or a morgue?!”

7. Upon the completion of a team project or event, during the team meeting or project evaluation, try making a dramatic face and whisper..“Did we….make a…difference?”

8. At networking functions, parties or when making new friends, you could say the following, “Our neural pathways have become accustomed to your sensory input patterns..”

9. When lured by temptation of food, entertainment, etc. it is always effective to use “Resistance is futile”

10. When asked the evergreen question ‘Would you like fries with that’, seriously answer, “Make it so.”

11. During office meetings when В competitors are being discussed or dissed, it could prove rather eloquent to spew, “Revenge is a dish best served cold. It is very cold in our air-conditioned office…”

12. When driving in a car and asked to drive faster, etc., quickly let out a hopeless “I’m givingВ herВ all she’s got, Captain!”

13. When faced in a hopeless or challenging situation, adapt to the scenario and cry out “Dammit Jim! I’m a <current profession>, not a <Blank>!” Eg. “Dammit boss! I’m a technician, not a robot!”

14. When noticing a colleague on the receiving end of a lot of work, assignment or stress, gingerly walk up and offer these words of encouragement, “Curious how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want…”

15. To exclaim surprise over just about anything at all, simply use Spock’s famousВ “Fascinating!”

16. To project good manners whenever you need to cut into a conversation, instead of the boring ‘Excuse me’, why not try, “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

17. В When being accused of lying, coolly defend yourself by saying, “I do not lie. I was merely exagerrating the truth..”

18. When you plug in your phone, PC, tablet or any other gadget to charge, proudly command in a stern, strong voice…“Energize!”

19. At home, when you sit down to relax on your sofa, pick up the the TV remote to turn it on, put on a serious note and exclaim..“On screen!”

20. Whenever asked if you can or cannot complete a particular job or assignment, put on your most dramatic facial expression, hold up your hands as if in agony, and let out the most famous Trek exclamation: “CAAAANNNNNNNNNN!!!”

21. And finally, do continue to regularly use the universal Vulcan greeting wherever you go and with whoever you meet: “Live long and prosper”

When PSY came down to Penang to perform at the highly politicised BN Chinese New Year concert recently, it triggered numerous videos that went viral, including the above video, which highlighted the very poor and inept event management skills of the company that conducted the concert.

Picking myself up from the floor after laughing too hard, it suddenly struck me that apart from the humourous, epic-fail В side of this video, it could also be very beneficial to everyone in the event management industry – as a superb real-life case study of what NOT to do when managing any event!

Without further ado, I proudly present 10 event management lessons you can instantly learn from this video:

1. Prioritize your event agenda: If the main highlight of the entire event was PSY’s concert, it wouldn’t be a sin to discard some items on the agenda…like this Loh Sang activity. After all, having too many items on the agenda would easily dilute the main highlight, on top of eating up too much time and also cause too much discomfort to the people in the sweltering heat. Which brings us to point no 2…

2. Take care of your audience: Personally, I would think the Loh Sang activity would work if it was a CNY Dinner or some makan gathering, where every other table in attendance also had its own set so everyone can lou hei together-gether. In a concert setting, it would seem quite illogical to conduct the activity for just the VVIPs whilst the rakyat watches on under the hot, hot sun!

3. Make sure the size is right: And even if you were somehow forced to conduct the Loh Sang activity, it would be best to ensure that the portion set before the VVIPs is big enough or sufficient. I don’t know about all of you, but the entire segment where the big horde of VVIPs hovering over the small Yee Sang dish seems so, so wrong…

4. Plan the event flow, and stick with it: The video highlighted what the entire mess of the program flow. Should the Yee Sang come out first? Was there going to be any speeches before the ceremony? How were the VVIPs supposed to stand? When were they supposed to start? Should PSY be invited too? It was quite clear that the program flow was certainly not under control…

5. Confirm (and confirm again) the roles of the guest of honor: It seemed quite evident that PSY wasn’t pre-warned or informed of the Loh Sang ceremony. His ‘rejection’ to participate could very easily be avoided if all his roles and responsibilities were spelt out clearly, even before he arrived in Penang.

6. Designate a floor manager to control the workers: You know you have a complete mess on your hands when you see the ministers on stage start to order the workers around. This has got to be well communicated from the start that all the event workers will only take instructions from a designated floor manager for more effective implementation of the event.

7. Filter your event emcee: It was just plain downright comical how the emcee was allowed to wander all over the stage in the middle of the planned Loh Sang ceremony. To top it all off, I don’t know just how long more the VVIPs nor the crowd could stand her high-pitched screaming and meaningless commentaries..

8. Be conscious of prop movements on stage: Watching the Yee Sang table being carried here, there and everywhere is really BAD, andВ EMBARRASSING….

9. Be time conscious: It was already bad enough that PSY refused to join in the Loh Sang ceremony. What was worst was this awkward 5+ minutes of DUH? time when the (already sweating and tired) crowd and the VVIPs stood around and did nothing but clap and hoped that PSY would turn up. An easy cover would be for the emcee to apologetically announce that PSY was still getting ready backstage and quickly proceed with the Loh Sang cermony. Timeliness is always key in any event management.

10.В Advise the VVIPs on stage protocols: In the midst of waiting and waiting for PSY, some of the VVIPs actually started to fiddle with their smartphones, taking pictures of the crowd, possibly tweeting, etc. Personally, I don’t think it was rather appropriate at such a function.

With all the hype surrounding the upcoming Star Trek: Into Darkness, it is safe to say that everyone, especially all Trekkies/Trekkers is STILL groping in the darkness about the identity of theВ VILLAIN of the film.

Today, I thought it would be fun for me to join in the bandwagon and offer my 5 best educated guesses into the identity of this mysterious villain.

What I did first was to come with with a simple checklist on the available data/info on the villain, scoured from all current trailers, teasers, Superbowl spots, interviews, etc. to narrow down my list of suspects:

– Villain wears the Starfleet uniform

– Villain seems to know Kirk and NOT the other way around

– Villain is immune to Spock’s nerve pinch

– Villain is mentioned as ‘John Harrison’

– Villain is super strong and can handle a really huge gattling-type gun

– Villain fights with Klingons

– Villain has some unexplainable power to heal

– Villain can be quite persuasive orВ possessesВ some charm to manipulate minds

– Villain is a one man weapon of mass destruction?

– Villain has some kind of personal vendetta against Kirk or the Federation

– Villain is from the Star Trek canon

After that, I did some research and came out with my top 5 picks of the villain for Into Darkness (in no particular order):

1. Robert April – Being a sucker at overanalysing stuff, I admitted that I tried to put myself in Abram’s mind and probed myself – if I was Abrams, who would I want to bring back as the key villain to my successful first Star Trek reboot? The first thought that came to me head would be someone who had some history with the Enterprise before Kirk took over. Eventually that led me to my first guess – Willard Decker, who captained the Enterprise in The Motion Picture (TMP) and eventually became a part of V’ger, yada, yada, yada. Then one day itВ occurredВ to me that TMP would not take place or had NOT taken В place in Abram’s Star Trek reboot!

Then about a month ago, it was revealed that the pre-movie comic tie-in showcased this relatively unknown Trek character, Robert April. In an episode of the Animated Series titled ‘The Counter Clock Incident‘, April was instrumental in reversing the accelerated ageing process onboard the Enterprise.

My theory is that the villain played byВ Benedict Cumberbatch is none other that the YOUNGER version of April, since Kirk couldn’t even recognise him from the trailers! Taking cue from the Counter Clock Incident, April could have discovered some formula to reverse ageing, heightened senses and strengths, etc. His feud with the Federation? Perhaps he got pissed that they retired him too early! After all, April did make a comment in the episode that ‘because someone is 75 years old, doesn’t mean they are ready to stop giving service to the galaxy..’ His fascination with Enterprise? Well, one of his quotes in that same episode wasВ “No matter where I’ve traveled in the galaxy, Jim, this bridge is more like home than anywhere else.”

2. Khan Noonien Singh – Perhaps the most highly favoured probability of the villain has to be the rebooted version of everyone’s favourite Khaaaaaannnnnn! Naturally endowed with superhuman strength and charm to manipulate people, it would seem that Khan would be spot on to battle Kirk in Into Darkness.

For me, I sincerely hope that it will NOT be Khan. Firstly, it would make the rebooted version look TOO similar to the previous movie franchise route. Next, it is almost sinful to mess nor reboot a successful villain of the past! My hope is that Khan will be forever left as a classic villain in the original timestream!

3. Garth of IzarВ –В Another popular character in the Original Series lore, Garth was a decorated, highly-regardedВ officerВ in the FederationВ Starfleet, who rose to rank ofВ Fleet CaptainВ in the course of his service through the mid-23rd century. His career dissolved in a dramatic descent into madness and attemptedВ genocide, resulting in his commitment to theВ Elba II asylumВ for the criminally insane. (Source:В http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Garth_of_Izar)

The X-factor of Garth is that he is also endowed with some form of В ‘transformative gift’ which allows him to heal, assume appearances of others (voice, clothing, etc.)

The keywords that jumped straight В at me: hatred for Starfleet, genocide, healing powers, manipulative powers, vendetta with Kirk. His powers of assuming another identity could also explain why Kirk couldn’t recognise him…

4. Gary MitchellВ –В A Starfleet personnel that grew up with Kirk would set up the back story of the villain’s vendetta against Kirk quite nicely. Mitchell is well known for having esper-oriented abilities that was psionic in nature, giving him God-like abilities like telekinesis, mind control, ESP, energy-control, matter control, etc.

When I thought about the massive destruction seen in the trailers, Mitchell’s name popped up with ease because he IS literally a one man weapon of mass destruction.

5. Roger Korby – Another angle in the Trek verse that is seldom explored is the Eugenics Wars, which basically is theВ result of aВ scientificВ attempt to improve theВ HumanВ race throughВ selective breedingВ andВ genetic engineering. Khan was one example bred through this era.

The more I look at the movie stills and trailers, the more I feel that the villain may not be so human after all. his steely eyes, movement, posture, strengths, etc. seems to suggest that he could very well be android in nature. I don’t know about the rest of you but the similarities of the face gestures of Data and this villain looks too similar!

That put me on a path to guess if Arik Soong could be a part of the movie as well. Since the timeline was a little В off, I would have to take a stab at a character in Kirk’s time, ie. Dr. Roger Korby. If you read his wiki from the link I provided, it is clear that Korby could very well the android villain in the movie, since he would be super-strong, unrecognisable in an unidentified android form (John Harrison), has medical knowledge and the additional threat of creating and populating our world with more androids.